Discussion Snek Charmer/Sea Snek

[Jubei_Kibagami]

To me - not an insignificant figure in the Tower, and his character (if not two distinct entities, more on that later) has been stretched over multiple chapters now post-break recovery.

IMO, they were always interrelated or one in the same, but Androssi makes it clear that there is something more than appearances - in her mind - linking the two. Any dismissal of a SC connection to SS is blown away by Androssi's words.

Further, we know that SS is tied to Laura and the twin princesses - key figures in the LPB Family and this arc as well.



Much discussion is lost to the chapter discussions hence this thread.

My current/working theory:

Snake Charmer that we saw from data floor made it clear he was out to select and, erm, groom princesses. He was working his LPB princess angle by deciding Laura should bear an heiress/princess. He confirms this to Lilial that he is happy to see her having become a princess. Same as we see SC is happy for things to have worked out with Androssi all the way back on data floor. BOTH are very clearly into the idea of raising princesses, and inextricably tied (punny seeing as they are just a snake pit entity) to princesses. Not coincidental.

SC was taking his directive to culture princesses too literally. He became more and more human-like (see flowery language when SS was first intro'd) and lusted after his current project: the LPB House/Laura. Laura was 'with' SC and they produced the twins.

In the interim, something else happened. Perhaps Rei captured SC and stripped him of his humanity and stuffed him in a bowl. He'd be made at Laura for, erm, beastiality? We know in the current chapter Laura has been locked down and scheduled for death by Rei anyways. Meanwhile, SC is less humanized now (losing his pendant cum portable bowl IMO) and works exclusively as a shinheuh used by the LPB FH.

Androssi also makes it clear SC could have upgraded/swapped out his sneks by focusing on his strongest one in his body (SS clones his snakes per his intro chapter) and/or consuming an exogenous snek. Hence, the snakes look a little different than what Androssi remembers.

 

[Vitala]

I think we don’t have enough elements right now. This snake plot line is so confusing for me abut seems very interesting. But I don’t think snake charmer is responsible for all princess. I don’t see princesses like hagipherione, mashenny or yuri being groomed by a snake charmer. It must be used for fodders princeses like garam or androssi.

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

I think we don’t have enough elements right now. This snake plot line is so confusing for me abut seems very interesting. But I don’t think snake charmer is responsible for all princess. I don’t see princesses like hagipherione, mashenny or yuri being groomed by a snake charmer. It must be used for fodders princeses like garam or androssi.

Very possible he came along at a later point for the more recent crop of princesses - which we see the likes of Androssi and the twins haven't even ranked yet.

What I wonder is - is he working always as a LPB under the guidance of Zahard as a joint project, or was he just working under Zahard and later captured by Rei, or what...

 

[Ignorant]

I think we don’t have enough elements right now. This snake plot line is so confusing for me abut seems very interesting. But I don’t think snake charmer is responsible for all princess. I don’t see princesses like hagipherione, mashenny or yuri being groomed by a snake charmer. It must be used for fodders princeses like garam or androssi.

It is possible that he just works with adopted Princesses.

 

[kkck]

At the moment it seems like a relatively solid bet that the sea snake and snake charmer are different characters. but they do appear to be the same sort of creature at least. And presumably somehow connected to the princess selection.. though the sea snake perhaps has more range considering it's interest in laura. Laura could actually be it's mate which would further add complexity to the situation. Hmmm, maybe the sea snake goes beyond simply picking princesses but also looks out for bloodlines that could produce interesting princesses?

 

[King Dryst]

My guess is that it used to be one of Traumerei's personal shihnueh, which he used in a breeding experiment with Laura (most likely as he watched). It developed feelings for the mother of its child(ren), to which Traumerei reacted as we have come to expect him to. He banished the creature to imprisonment and claimed Laura's offspring as being his own in order to erase the snake's lineage out of spite.

 

[Demonspeed]

I need more to believe that Androssi has been adopted by a LPB Branch so I don't think the SC is one of them.

There was only one Ranker in her family, maybe it was the SC, maybe not. But he must have been the one who selected all the girls.

Androssi said that he sold some of his snakes, so I believe the SS is simply a Shinheuh who transformed after eating one of them. The SC is the source, but he isn't really related to him. To me it's kinda like when vampires turn their victims into one.

 

[O_n_Sly]

@Jubei_Kibagami why are you ignoring the lore that introduced Sea Shore lol. It was always a snake but fell in love with Laura. Androssi talks about someone eating a snake lol. Come on man, you’ve been very sloppy as of late!!!

 

[Ignorant]

I think that i was that one who got it all wrong
After debating with everybody saying that they were the same person
Im here to say that i was wrong but i still think the SC is from the LPB and that androssi serve “under” LPB name her title as adopted princesses.

 

[kkck]

Not sure of what the implication is but the sea snake was seemingly held in a "dark bowl" or something like that. Does this mean the sea snake is a shineuh? or that the shineuh and the tamer were prisoners in the bowl? Some shineuh seem sentient but its weird that a shineuh would be its own anima. Maybe the snake charmer is also held by its own bowl. Given that there seems to be some overlap between the sea snake and snake charmer in regards to the princesses, as in both seem to have functions connected to those, perhaps the situation is that there are a number of beings like this which select princesses every now and then. i feel like one for each family would be too much though. As in, too many characters. The old lore makes the point that the primary requirement for a princess to be chosen is the capability to receive zahard's power so perhaps androsi's backstory actually hints at the snake charmer having the capability to identify worthy vessels. With that in mind perhaps it makes sense that each family would be willing to have one of this in order to find as many princess candidates as they can.

 

[toil]

We don't know much about snake-beings yet (maybe more in a few hours), but they do seem to be at the intersection of a lot of SIU's favorite tropes/ideas/themes.

Grooming (sigh) of talented youths is pervasive: the tower-climbing system is, itself, a grooming system; the whole princess-selection/development/etc. system is another grooming system; collecting-the-weapons is another grooming system; *arguably* FUG's slayer-candidate stuff, and so on—SIU's story is just littered with such systems. The snake-beings seemingly being involved-in the identification of candidates and invested-in the success of their chosen candidates (obviously) fits into this mold. The primary question for me on this front is if (a) the snakes are part of some new, stand-alone-ish system, (b) the snakes are a heretofore-secret part of an existing one (e.g. part of princess program), or (c) some as-yet-unknown other possibility?

People partnering-with, gaining power, and often also winding up inhabited-by/corrupted-by demons/monsters/thryssas/etc. is also pervasive: White and his demon; Hell Joe and the thryssa; Beam and his various inhabitants; Zahard and his red thorny demon-thing. With the snakes it's so far ambiguous: we saw Androssi enter into a "symbolic" arrangement with the snake charmer (wearing the necklace), but not getting "inhabited" (or obviously corrupted); we also see our twin-ponytails twin-princess similarly agree to partner with "her" friendly neighborhood snake-ensemble, but—so far—still no apparent inhabitation / corruption. The comment vis-a-vis gaining powers by eating the snakes made me think we *might* see something more in that direction eventually...but not yet.

Finally, it shouldn't escape attention that the administrators' preferred/natural form appears to (universally?) be some kind of large-scale snake. We also know (I think?) that Hell Joe's red thryssa was essentially a tiny fragment that survived the death of the floor's administrator. As such, I can see a neat possibility: "administratornakes:andwormandtrout". In other words, these (special) snakes are the basic building block of administrators, the snake ensembles are intermediate steps on the path to achieving administrator-status, and administrators are simply snake-ensembles who've long-ago reached their final form. Doubt that's where SIU's going with this, frankly, but it's interesting.

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

@Jubei_Kibagami why are you ignoring the lore that introduced Sea Shore lol. It was always a snake but fell in love with Laura. Androssi talks about someone eating a snake lol. Come on man, you’ve been very sloppy as of late!!!

Curious about which part about my speculation rules out that lore?

The language to describe BOTH is rather poetic, and there seems to have been a transformative process from SC to SS if Androssi's guesses are correct.

 

[sazon]

What I wonder is - is he working always as a LPB under the guidance of Zahard as a joint project, or was he just working under Zahard and later captured by Rei, or what...

I think he works directly with Zahard or for a specific family.

After all, every family has its own selection

Elaine was chosen as a princess automatically for her ability to summon Fenryl, they ignored everything else, so if SS is a subordinate of the LPB, he only works with princesses outside the family and/or less than 1000 years old.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 12, 2023, Original Post Date: Mar 12, 2023 ---

My guess is that it used to be one of Traumerei's personal shihnueh, which he used in a breeding experiment with Laura (most likely as he watched). It developed feelings for the mother of its child(ren), to which Traumerei reacted as we have come to expect him to. He banished the creature to imprisonment and claimed Laura's offspring as being his own in order to erase the snake's lineage out of spite.

It could be the other way around, Laura had an affair with him and Rei pissed gave one of the snakes from SC to the guy who ended up becoming SS.

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

If you're a being made of constituent organisms and you cycle through to stronger constituent organisms (and/or consume another, stronger singular organism to then transform your lesser organisms to upgraded versions) - are you a 'different' entity? Or is that a matter or semantics?

Alternatively, a singular constituent organism spins off and goes solo just to become the same thing again by self-dividing (asexual cloaning)

 

[toil]

If you're a being made of constituent organisms and you cycle through to stronger constituent organisms (and/or consume another, stronger singular organism to then transform your lesser organisms to upgraded versions) - are you a 'different' entity? Or is that a matter or semantics?

Alternatively, a singular constituent organism spins off and goes solo just to become the same thing again by self-dividing (asexual cloaning)

I've seen all kinds of variations on this in fiction over the years, and loosely-speaking the treatment of these ideas hinges a lot on how identifiable/coarse-grained the constituents are.

One of Vernor Vinge's books had "dogs" who were individually smart-but-sub-sentient, became (collectively) sentient once bound into a three-member pack, and iirc became unstable in groups of 4 or more (with 2 being a kinda cognitively-impaired state, again iirc). Each constituent had an identifiable sub-personality, packs would often split/merge in response and to death of a member, and thus there was some (imperfect) continuity between packs with members in common.

At the other end you get borg/sand trout/etc.: countless members, minimal differentiation/identification/individuation, and so on. Not as much to say about them.

We will see what SIU does with snake beings, but right now seems more towards the borg end (albeit with different snake-based life forms having distinct identities...but snakes seem to be indistinguishable).

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

I've seen all kinds of variations on this in fiction over the years, and loosely-speaking the treatment of these ideas hinges a lot on how identifiable/coarse-grained the constituents are.

One of Vernor Vinge's books had "dogs" who were individually smart-but-sub-sentient, became (collectively) sentient once bound into a three-member pack, and iirc became unstable in groups of 4 or more (with 2 being a kinda cognitively-impaired state, again iirc). Each constituent had an identifiable sub-personality, packs would often split/merge in response and to death of a member, and thus there was some (imperfect) continuity between packs with members in common.

At the other end you get borg/sand trout/etc.: countless members, minimal differentiation/identification/individuation, and so on. Not as much to say about them.

We will see what SIU does with snake beings, but right now seems more towards the borg end (albeit with different snake-based life forms having distinct identities...but snakes seem to be indistinguishable).

Yes, and it's the individual sneks being indistinguishable and interchangeable that points to only the two personalities we've seen between the two characters (SC and SS): the humanoid versions of each.

SC seems much more refined, actually human-looking, and a more fleshed out (literally and figuratively) personality/visage/way of speaking/mentality.

SS seems much more primal, more animal/less human features, disjointed way of speaking/thinking... but still a humanoid at that level nonetheless. Further, we know SS had attained some level of intelligence/enlightenment (eating of the tree/fruit of the knowledge of good and evil vibes) that resulted in the lusting after the twin's mother, Laura.

The biblical theme continues beyond the 'knowledge' aspect (eating of another snake instead of a fruit however): in that the rebellious character is a snek/serpent itself. It seems to have violated its mandate from its master/god if you will, and is now being punished - the results of Adam and Eve being the same after they ate of the fruit and became enlightened/self-aware (punishment being banishment from paradise/Eden).

Without pushing it further - a bestial hybrid violating the order of things (ahem, nephilim) was a bridge too far for 'god' - Rei in this analogy.

And even more - the first union post-gnosis is a set of twins. OK, there's some scholarly debate about whether Cain and Able were twins or not, but the argument has been made. Snek's post-awareness offspring created... twins.

So, now we have - checks notes - a gnostic serpent, intimately tied to the theme of attaining "forbidden" knowledge (or emotions at it were), being punished by its god for rebelling, entering into a union creating hybrid beings, and the result is a set of twins.



Which is why I think SC did something to itself - as Androssi clearly suggests - that upgraded its capabilities ("picking the best of his snakes and killing the rest"), that is now forced into a dark, cold bowl (essentially jailed), and Rei is keeping something from it as a result of its actions - dangling a carrot in front of its face or hanging its faults over its head. 'It' being what SC turned itself into - SS.

Alternatively (or in addition to), SC could have been smacked down a bit (by Rei), losing its humanity and autonomy in the process.

As such, the constituent snakes are really inconsequential and just indicative that it's the same entity - this time more powerful but less human-like. The specific nature, while similar, is different enough to show an evolution of sorts (that Androssi ponders over), and its mental regression (very evident in the way it speaks) can explain it not immediately recognizing Androssi.

All that to say - at the end of the day, it's just the same character, transformed (+ 20 to strength, - 20 to intelligence)

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 15, 2023, Original Post Date: Mar 13, 2023 ---

Cross-referencing this from the LPB thread.

Facts:

- Androssi suspects SS is either a transformed, or spin-off variant of SC (doesn't seem to be a necessary dialogue if not some flavor of truth)
- SS claims to Lil that it is her father, a product from the union with Laura. This strongly implies segs. (If not a sort of experiment, sure, but SS is being rather sentimental if he's just a sperm donor or something)
- SC could take on a COMPLETE, convincing, and detailed human form. Down to features such as eyes, ears, teeth, mouth, etc (all of which appear to be functioning). In theory this would extend to the genitals - not to be crass, but IIWII
- SS takes a human form similarly, but it is in no way exact in the human nature or function of an actual human. It doesn't have anything a humanoid actually has - it's just a mass of snakes compressed into the silhouette of a man. Basically what I'm getting at here - no peepee. Snek peepee?

Soooooo, if Laura had a more 'traditional' union with SS, how does that work, exactly, from a functionality/mechanics standpoint?

It seems to suggest SS was once more humanlike, to be able to 'perform' such a feat and successfully copulate.

Laura having coitus with the current 'human' version of SS is bestial to the point I don't even think SIU would go there or even hint at it.

i.e., SS *probably* was more humanlike, previously, down to passing as an actual man. You might even imagine him as, IDK, charming or the like in order to 'land' a top-tier LPB. (or, if having trouble reading between the lines - it was SC that fucked Laura, and now that has been turned into SS who still has that memory)

But, it has since changed. Probably for just that (union). He seems to be being kept forcefully, and in particular away from Laura, but certainly in a dank cell/bowl. Being let out seems to be a luxury - like when inmates are let out to clean highways or something.

Maybe Rei crushed SC's controlling snek - the one with the gold jewel. SC lost his humanity, and in turn his way of thinking, speaking, and even memory are now affected - to the point it cannot even recognize Androssi easily.

Alternatively, SC 'fed' one of his own constituent snakes (another snake?), and spun off the entity into a new one - SS. However, this still doesn't address the topic of this post - how SS did the deed.

Androssi also mentions killing off all the rest of the snakes but the strongest. Not sure why SC would do that - this would just result in one snake - just to start dividing again. In any event - that's STILL SC, just a transformed, Borg-esque version.

 

[O_n_Sly]

@Jubei_Kibagami listen up so on WEBTOON Endorsi says “No it’s just those snakes reminded me of someone I know… No I don’t think it’s him. I must’ve mistook him for someone else. Besides when I took a closer look, they look kind of different… But I was really surprised when I first saw the snakes… Anyway I don’t want to think about the BREEDER anymore.
Bam - the breeder
Endorsi - yeah, that’s what they call him. Some people believe they can absorb the power of old snakes by eating them. The BREEDER used to make his kids stronger by feeding them parts of himself that he called Snake Strands. Then, after selecting only the best among his kids and killing the rest… he would sell them off. Isn’t that creepy?

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 10, 2023, Original Post Date: Apr 10, 2023 ---

I was to lazy to point the difference so there’s the dialogue. Serpent Master and the Breeder are completely different beings

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

Oh, so now there are three beings?

Realize these beings are being addressed euphemistically.

 

[O_n_Sly]

Oh, so now there are three beings?

Realize these beings are being addressed euphemistically.

What 3 beings lol? Serpent Master and The Breeder?! Just give up there’s no connection

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

What 3 beings lol? Serpent Master and the The Breeder?! Just give up there’s no connection

Breeder, SS, and SC.

Is that your position?

Or, if not, there are still only 2?

In that way, what exactly has changed?

None of these references are actual names.